Feb. 04, 2023 - 7:05 p.m.

Radio GaGa

Well. It's been a couple of days, huh?

I started blogging in 2003 to stay awake. I was an overnight radio traffic reporter on a 24-hour all-news station, and there were long gaps between my reports. Long gaps sitting in a dark room with nothing to do at 3am was not conducive to staying awake so I started blogging over at Diaryland. I would write and write and write and write until my shift was over, and when my shift was over my entry was over and I'd post it. Nobody but me was reading it back then, so I didn't give a shit about form or grammar or anything else. It was just a tool to keep me from sending snoring sounds over the air instead of traffic reports.

In 2003 me and NewWifey(tm) celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary, we were both constantly either riding our motorcycles or each other, and we had a Pembroke Welsh Corgi who chased after bears and a cute little orange cat that I once fucked with a Q-Tip (it's in the archives). Life was good.

A few years later our company was taken over by a large network and not only did my hours change to something less vampire-ish, but my workload was increased. My diary entries started to become more sporadic. I didn't need the stimulation of writing to keep my eyes open, and I didn't have time any more even if I did. I started writing more at home, in what free moments I could find.

Then our network was taken over by another network. They changed my hours again, and my job. I was no longer a traffic reporter. I was now a news anchor. While on the face of it a step up, in reality the new position required much more work. I had to take print stories filed by our reporters and craft them into a format suitable for radio, which often meant complete re-writes as well as producing and inserting audio cuts. So...less time for blogging.

Then COVID. Work from home, work for workers out with COVID, work for workers who died from COVID, work work work. My schedule got so busy I was having to do show prep every night before bed or I wouldn't have enough time in the morning to write all the stories I needed for my newscasts. Any downtime I had generally saw me sitting glaze-eyed in front of the TV playing "Red Dead Online" until I had to get back to work.

Less blogging.

In between, the corgi and kitty died, as did the next kitty. My hot sports car got replaced by an SUV (ah, married life). I had surgery on both elbows and had to give up boxing but taking up photography. NewWife(tm) had a cancer scare, started a small business, and stopped riding motorcycles. (Still ride each other, though.)

We lost everything in the Crash of 2008, declared bankruptcy in 2010, lived on dried beans and twigs for a while, and slowly clawed our way back to at least a modicum of the living standard we'd had before, although with scary little savings still. We managed to keep a roof over our heads the entire time, and if anything the shared struggle strengthened our marriage rather than rend it asunder, but it's been tough. Draining, emotionally and physically. Not to mention time consuming.

I know in my last entry I was crying in my beer about not having any friends. But honestly, I wouldn't have had time for them. I haven't even been able to keep up with my virtual friends (so sorry, Raven72d!).

But now I do.

I was laid off last week.

The company has decided to downsize, and I take up a lot of space. So for the first time in 34 years, I can't say "Radio Announcer" when someone asks what I do for a living.

Shit.

I'm scared. Out on the street with 34 years experience in a dying profession, and no other real skill. A severance package that will keep paying the mortgage on DangerHouse for some months, but after that...

I know what you're saying: "Duh. Be a gigolo!"

I appreciate that, and in another place and time you're right, I would have made millions. But now, with OnlyFans and PornHub and Ashley Madison giving it away free, it's a whole 'nuther world. Doesn't matter how good a cunnilinguist you are, with perfect scores across the board on Yelp and references available on request, well...

On the plus side I don't have to get up at 3am, drive an hour to work, work an 8 hour shift, drive an hour back, cram whatever I can into my face and wife for 4 hours before doing show prep then passing out in bed so I can do it all over again tomorrow. So maybe I can start blogging a bit more. A lot depends on what new job I end up with, of course. Anyone know how much you can make on OnlyFans if you look like Jabba the Hutt with back hair...?

I do have quite a few stories to catch y'all up on, too: Janis Ian punched me, we got a COVID cat who loves me to the exclusion of everything else, including a very upset about it NewWifey(tm) (I actually did an entry about this just over a year ago, but it bears repeating), I became a taco, one of our neighbors thinks we called the cops on them about a loud party (we didn't) and have been doing extraordinary things to extract their revenge, I won some photography awards, an angry lady mailed a dead mouse to NewWifey(tm), and I got a new 2-foot long penis. You gotta see this thing.

And hopefully you will. Soon.

Ciao!

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